Tag Archives: Kanban Style

Trello offers an easy to use project management tool that is not only easy and fun to use, it is beautifully visual, encourages collaboration and is intuitive to understand at first glance.

Web Based Project Management Application
Trello is a free web-based project management system application that is available on iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows 8, and web browsers.

Visual Thinking
Trello is the greatest project management tool for visual thinkers. Trello is a project management tool that emulates a board with sticky notes on a wall or notecards on a cork board. It is a highly visual organizational tool to manage the process of completing a project. The project’s lifecycle is easily managed between tasks and milestones to provide a bird’s eye view of the work process.

Kanban Style Format
Boards are the essential collaboration tools that allows you to organize each individual project in a kanban style format. The kanban style or method, for managing work, prioritizes delivery at appropriate times to alleviate overload of information by people assigned to a given project. This process defines the task as it moves through the work process until it’s completion or delivery to customers. The purpose of Trello is to display the process in all it’s steps in the kanban style. Team members pull work from the assigned cards. In essence, Trello and the kanban system tells members what to produce, when to produce it and how much to produce.

Layered System
The layout is a layered system. First you create organizations, then you create a board for each project, on each board, you can create lists, within the lists you create cards. The board is set-up with columns across the top horizontally and cards making up the lists going down the columns vertically. As mentioned above, it is reminiscent of a cork board with cards pinned under different headings. The cards can be dragged to the appropriate columns when they are completed.

Lists and Cards
As mentioned, you organize the board by columns horizontally that are called lists so that you can get an overview of the project’s process and then add cards vertically within the lists that you can move across the columns. The cards can contain checklists, colored labels, images and attachments. Each card can be assigned to different people and files can be attached that are important to the project. In addition, each card can be moved, copied, subscribed to or archived.

Reasons for using Trello

1.) It keeps things neat and organized if you have a separate board for each project

2.) It’s easy to move between projects with the menu at the top of the Trello screen

3.) You can move cards easily from list to list (column), for instance if you follow the “To do”, “Doing”, and “Done” lists you can move cards easily as you progess

4.) You can manage running conversations almost like an email chain in an easily viewed and understandable format

5.) You will get notifications for new activity which eliminates the need for checking Trello throughout the day

7.) Simplicity is an overriding factor for some when choosing a project management tool

8.) Built for easy collaboration

Client Projects
Trello is an effective way to handle client projects. Creating a board for every client project eases the communication flow when going through various stages of the work process. It is easy to assign tasks and allow the client the view of the project in process and who is performing what task. There is also an efficiency of time due to the fact that the team spends less time checking in.

Personal Projects
Trello can be used for personal projects, keeping track of family priorities, small business assignments, art projects, daily tasks, lesson plans, hobbies etc…

Workflow
It is also a place to brainstorm, re-organize, prioritize and plan out the visual landscape of a project. The basic principles of using the system are to visualize the workflow, limit the amount of tasks in the “in progress” column, pull completed work from column to column as completed and finally and most importantly, monitor, adapt and improve.

Integrations
Trello is simple in design but can be integrated with hundreds of applications including gmail, Evernote, Sunrise Calendar, Twitter, Salesforce, Google Drive, Zapier and IFTTT.

Inspirational Examples

-Weddings, Baby and Bridal Showers, Anniversary and Birthday Parties can be planned easily with boards that use lists that detail timing such as 12-months out, 6-months out, 3-months out, 1-month out, 2-weeks out.

-Vacations can be planned easily with Trello boards to research different destination options, to dos before trip, itinerary, restaurant research, historical site research, planning, packing, etc…

-Job search can be organized with boards that list preparation, open positions, companies, interviews and follow-ups

-Home renovations can be planned with family members to interview contractors, schedule prep work, materials, design ideas, communicate thoroughly and coordinate schedules

-Editorial calendars can be created to write blogs, books, articles social media content or writing portfolios.

Pricing
Trello’s basic plan for individuals is free. The Business plan is $100 per year/per user and the Enterprise pricing is $250 per year for multiple teams.

Summary
As you can see the possibilities for managing projects are endless with this phenomenal tools at hand. The visual nature makes this tool beautiful to use. It’s simplicity for use with teams or individually is a major selling point. The integrations with other applications ensures that you can really create a robust project management tool. Create your first board today and begin the journey to easy project management. Click here to try Trello!